The omega-3 industry’s sustainability progress: GOED’s role

Acknowledging the importance of the omega-3 industry focusing on the environmental and social impacts of its raw materials, GOED’s board of directors determined the organization should formally measure and support improvements in the omega-3 industry’s sustainability posture on an ongoing basis.

Since then, GOED has:

  • Commissioned an industry “Horizon Scan” and full materiality assessment based on the Horizon Scan.

  • Surveyed its membership to understand the category’s self-reported sustainability position

  • Applied for membership to the UN Global Compact

  • Commissioned a life cycle assessment (LCA) advisory and guide for companies that want to understand or compare the sustainability of their omega-3 products.

Horizon Scan and Materiality Assessment

GOED commissioned sustainable food consultancy Tasting the Future to catalogue the largest environmental, social or other governance issues on the horizon for the omega-3 category and the ways they intersect through a 2023 “Horizon Scan” analysis. In 2024, GOED commissioned the same team to write a “materiality assessment” — a specialized sustainability report that draws on stakeholder analysis and other methods to determine which sustainability issues call for urgent action from a company, industry, or other community.

Sustainability Survey of Membership

In that 2021 member survey, roughly 50% of leading omega-3 companies gave answers that would put them in the third or higher level (out of five) from consulting firm Ecochain’s five-stage “sustainability maturity model.” These companies referenced sustainability as something baked into the company’s core strategy. To continue to monitor industry progress, GOED will use a regular survey to benchmark the category’s sustainability maturity. This will assist industry members, regulators, financiers and consumers in understanding the category’s advancement on this important journey.

UN Global Compact Membership

GOED has also applied for membership in the UN Global Compact — a training and networking hub for globe-spanning organizations advancing the Ten Principles that help the corporate world contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

LCA Industry Advisory

Due to the complexity of different source species and geographies that produce omega-3s, no sustainability accountability standard would fit all omega-3 oil types or companies. To remedy this, GOED is commissioning an independent white paper that will provide recommendations for “life-cycle assessment” (LCA) parameters that omega-3 companies worldwide can use to compare the life cycle impact of their omega-3 products. The advisory will help industry members understand which impacts on biodiversity, emissions, water and land use and other outcomes to measure when studying and marketing the sustainability of their products. This will empower omega-3 companies and their customers to compare their products' scientifically validated life cycle impact and should be published in 2025 or early 2026.

Carbon Offsets by GOED's Management Team

GOED’s 12-person management team also uses the environmental impact platform Wren.co to model accountability by identifying and offsetting the carbon impacts of the team, both personal and work-related. Carbon offsets are not the optimal solution to climate change, but the GOED team is proud to use Wren to stay mindful of its emissions and contribute to primarily the spread of carbon-reducing technologies, but also to environmental policy advocacy, conservation and tree planting.